Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Reliable web page capture...
tomos:
I use information management as a slightly more elegant way of saying "data dump". Somewhere I can stick short, medium and long-term data, text and images, everything from project research to software registration data. I want that data indexed and tagged. I want the database to be scalable. Not industrial strength, but I want it to hold a normal person's data, work and personal, over several years without choking.
The more I search, the more I think that looking for one piece of software to do everything is silly, and maybe even counter-productive. When I think about the pieces of software I most enjoy using, they tend to do one simple task well. AM-Notebook as my note-taker, for example. Not flawless, but a nice, small focused program (and interestingly, by the same person/team as LWA).
-johnk (July 16, 2008, 05:39 PM)
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I always used Surfulater for information management/"data dump"
Evernote I use for notes & short term web research (e.g. researching monitors)
I'm now using SQLNotes for information & the other two are by the wayside but still with loads of stuff in there
I think I have to take a long look at what I want to do myself & how/if I want to continue using all these programs
SQLNotes is sticking anyways - it okay at web capture but nothing like what you want but then it is in beta, especially in that respect
BTW, I agree with all your points. When you enter content, it should be this (simple) way.
Some of the complexities (which I'll resolve) is that the HTML pane can be used in other ways. For example, you can open an HTML file from disk. Then any changes to the content updates the disk file (EN does not have this feature). You work on what looks like SN [SQLNotes] content, but it is really a local file (and eventually an FTP or other web file). You can also open a URL and view it, in this case, editing is disabled. HTM, MHT (and PDF) files are handled differently too, etc. It has many modes and managing all of these... well... needs a bit of improvements :(
-PPLandry (July 10, 2008, 06:50 PM)
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With all three you can export - I havent use Evernote that way but as rj says it can export MHT files
Surfulater will mail selected articles for you (html) and exports html and MHT
SQLNotes currently exports to html
J-Mac:
To be honest, many times a pure and simple screenshot is all that I need. It is only occasionally that I need a true and complete capture of all aspects on the web page. For a full page screen capture it depends on the page itself as to which application I use.
For web pages that can be captured with one screenshot, I always use mouser's Screenshot Captor - you really can't beat that! However if the page is longer than one screenshot, and must be scrolled, I then use SnagIt. (For some odd reason, I cannot capture a scrolling page with Screenshot Captor - when I try, during the capture the window goes blank and gets very light/bright. Browser becomes unreponsive, requiring me to end the process for Screenshot Captor via the Windows Task Manager. About half the times I tried I also had to restart the browser, and on a few occasions I had to actually reboot! I suspect it may be an incompatibility between Screenshot Captor and nVidia graphics cards - and possibly AMD dual core processors).
When I need all objects on a web page, I use Local Website Archive. More recently I have been trying to use Ultra Recall, but even with that latest fix I cannot capture most secure pages at site where I am logged in. Rather than just grabbing it UR tries to refresh the page (never works, darn it!).
Jim
rjbull:
When I need all objects on a web page, I use Local Website Archive. More recently I have been trying to use Ultra Recall, but even with that latest fix I cannot capture most secure pages at site where I am logged in. Rather than just grabbing it UR tries to refresh the page (never works, darn it!).
-J-Mac (July 17, 2008, 10:48 PM)
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That happens to me when I try it on shareware registration sites and the like. I assume it's because you have to be securely logged in with the current browser, and the site doesn't recognise UR as being that. You might try using LWA with the "Send keystrokes" method, where it forces the browser to save a copy of the file to disk, then reads that, rather than trying to go directly to the original page.
Interesting note: Roboform recognises WebSite-Watcher as a mini-browser and attaches a Roboform taskbar when a WSW window appears. WSW has an option to directly archive files to LWA - at least, I think it does - so you could log in with WSW and Roboform, then use WSW to transfer the page to LWA. It doesn't look like Roboform sees LWA as a browser in itself, even though they're both from Martin Aignesberger, but I haven't checked thoroughly.
J-Mac:
That happens to me when I try it on shareware registration sites and the like. I assume it's because you have to be securely logged in with the current browser, and the site doesn't recognise UR as being that. You might try using LWA with the "Send keystrokes" method, where it forces the browser to save a copy of the file to disk, then reads that, rather than trying to go directly to the original page.
-rjbull (July 18, 2008, 09:53 AM)
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I used to do that, but when I reinstalled Windows on this computer I lost the ability. You have to create an .ini file in order to allow that, and the last I had checked Martin had not done anything with that for FF3.
One thing about all of Martin's applications - he doesn't seem to like adding any niceties at all. Most tasks have to be done the hard way or the long way. One example is just this - having to create .ini files for sending keystrokes. Also, if you try to select a folder in LWA that you want your capture to be stored in, if the one you would like to use doesn't exist, there is no standard "New Folder" button. You have to stop the capture and then open the main window of LWA, create the new folder and name it, and only then go and do the capture again. A lot of little touches like that are missing and he usually isn't real keen on adding them.
Which is one of the reasons I am looking for other ways to get this done.
Interesting note: Roboform recognises WebSite-Watcher as a mini-browser and attaches a Roboform taskbar when a WSW window appears. WSW has an option to directly archive files to LWA - at least, I think it does - so you could log in with WSW and Roboform, then use WSW to transfer the page to LWA. It doesn't look like Roboform sees LWA as a browser in itself, even though they're both from Martin Aignesberger, but I haven't checked thoroughly.-rjbull (July 18, 2008, 09:53 AM)
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Ultra Recall is the same - listed on RF's browser page and the toolbar is there in UR. Doesn't seem to help, though, regarding these capture issues.
Thanks!
Jim
johnk:
One thing about all of Martin's applications - he doesn't seem to like adding any niceties at all. Most tasks have to be done the hard way or the long way.
-J-Mac (July 18, 2008, 02:18 PM)
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I know what you mean -- I was quite amazed when I started using AM-Notebook that there were no shortcut keys either to start a new note or to restore the program from the system tray -- two of the most basic and most used functions (and this was version 4!). I had to use AutoHotkey to create the shortcuts (thank goodness for AHK). To be fair to Martin, he did add a global restore hotkey when the issue was raised in his forums.
There are two sides to this, though. On one level, I actually like the .ini file approach to capturing information in LWA. It means that you can generate semi-automated capture from all kinds of programs. In the last couple of days I've created ini files for Word and Thunderbird, and they work fine. At least "the hard way" is better than "no way".
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